Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [31]
13. Waite, 80.
14. Graham, 284.
15. Waite, 294.
16. Massey, GHC, 19.
17. Eusebius, 108.
18. Mead, GG, 128.
19. Wells, DJE, 71.
20. Wells, DUE, 78.
21. Waite, 400-1.
22. Waite, 397-8.
23. Keeler, 16.
24. Waite, 265.
25. Waite, 75.
26. Doane, 459.
27. Steiner, 119.
28. Wheless, FC, 174. See also Wells, esp. WWJ.
29. Waite, 213.
30. Wheless, FC, 207.
31. Doane, 462.
32. Walker, WEMS, 470.
33. Massey, GHC, 19.
34. Mead, DJL, 66.
35. Wheless, FC, 173.
36. Notovich, 6.
37. Dujardin, 100.
38. Mack, 10.
39. Higgins, II, 131-2.
40. Waite, 417-19.
41. Wells, HEJ, 36.
42. Carpenter, 202.
43. Taylor, 7.
44. Hotema, EBD by Massey, intro., 26.
45. Wheless, FC, 224.
Non-Biblical Sources
We have seen that the gospel accounts are utterly unreliable as history and cannot serve as evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed. Now we shall examine if there are any non-biblical, nonpartisan records by historians during the alleged time of the astonishing events: To wit, a virgin-born "son of God" who was famed widely as a great teacher and wonderworker, miraculously healing and feeding multitudes, walking on water and raising the dead; who was transfigured on a mount into a shining sun; whose crucifixion was accompanied by great earthquakes, the darkening of the sun and the raising from their graves of numerous "saints"; and who himself was resurrected from the dead. Of these alleged events, Eusebius asserts:
Because of His power to work miracles the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ became in every land the subject of excited talk and attracted a vast number of people in foreign lands very remote from Judaea ... 1
Surely these extraordinary events known far and wide were recorded by one or more competent historians of the time! As noted, the centuries surrounding the beginning of the Christian era, the periods of Tiberias and Augustus, were, in fact, some of the best-documented in history, as admitted even by Christian apologists.2 For example, the Roman historian under Augustus, Livy (59 BCE-17 CE), alone composed 142 volumes, over a hundred of which were subsequently destroyed by the conspirators trying to cover their tracks.
Despite this fact, however, there are basically no non-biblical references to a historical Jesus by any known historian of the time during and after Jesus's purported advent. As Walker says, "No literate person of his own time mentioned him in any known writing." Eminent Hellenistic Jewish historian and philosopher Philo (20 BCE-50 CE), alive at the purported time of Jesus, was silent on the subject of the great Jewish miraclemaker and rabblerouser who brought down the wrath of Rome and Judea. Nor are Jesus and his followers mentioned by any of the some 40 other historians who wrote during the first and second centuries of the Common Era, including Plutarch, the Roman biographer, who lived at the same time (46-120 CE) and in the same place where the Christians were purportedly swarming yet made no mention of them, their founder or their religion. As is related in McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia of Theological Literature:
Enough of the writings of ]these] authors . . . remain to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.3
Flavius Josephus, Jewish Historian, (37-@ 95 CE)
Flavius Josephus is the most famous Jewish historian, especially because he wrote during the first century. His father, Matthias, was a reputable and learned member of a priestly family, and lived in Jerusalem contemporaneously with Pilate. Certainly he would have told his historian son about the bizarre and glorious events depicted in the gospels, had they occurred just years earlier. Josephus himself was appointed to Galilee during the Jewish Wars and was in Rome at the same time Paul was supposed to have been there incurring the wrath of the authorities upon him and his community of Christians.